SUPPLY CHAIN ARTICLES

  • The RNA Therapeutics Supply Chain: A Platform of Relationships

    Conversations digging into RNA-specific sourcing considerations have been few and far between. Enter Sanofi's Greg Troiano. Together, we delved into the nuances, challenges, and opportunities for growth that currently exist within the mRNA drug substance and drug product (i.e., mRNA-LNP) raw material sourcing worlds.

  • What Violin Making Can Teach Us About mRNA Therapeutic Quality

    Managing the mRNA supply chain and working in mRNA process development may not look anything like the work a luthier does to hew an instrument from an ancient spruce tree. But violin craftmanship actually serves as a fantastic metaphor for the challenging work the mRNA therapeutics space is tackling in sourcing and qualifying raw materials and optimizing the critical IVT reaction.

  • FDA Sets Recommendations For Predicting Dangerous Nitrosamine Impurities

    The FDA recently published a final guidance that sets a recommended framework for predicting the potential of nitrosamine drug substance-related impurities.

  • Multidisciplinary mRNA: What Can We Learn From Other CGTs?

    Overall, there are four high-level best practices/mindsets I proposed during a recent presentation that I believe will be crucial for us to bring some talented RNA therapeutic role models to the forefront. But there is one best practice that I think is worth emphasizing more than the others.

  • Moderna & The Global mRNA Supply Chain: Regulatory Lessons Learned

    One of the most important reminders I took away from Moderna’s experiences ushering its mRNA vaccine onto the global market is that a commercial manufacturing process must also be accompanied by a commercially ready supply chain. Though sufficient physical volumes of each raw material and a redundant supplier network are necessities, physical scale is not the only “CQA” for which we must account when commercializing our supply chain. 

  • "Mirror, Mirror…": Reflections On Reducing mRNA Production COGS

    Here, I outline three overarching words of wisdom I gleaned from Life Edit Therapeutics’ April Sena; Tune Therapeutics’ Tyler Goodwin; and University of Sheffield’s Adi on how the mRNA/RNA industry can better control production costs — particularly as it relates to raw material sourcing and usage.  

SUPPLY CHAIN VIDEOS

Hosted by Cell & Gene Collaborative's Director Anna Rose Welch, ARW on RNA puts a creative spin on the emerging mRNA + RNA therapeutics industry. Here, in Episode 3, Welch explores the similarities that exist between the art of crafting a high quality violin and the upstream process development work mRNA therapeutics experts are performing today to create the most ideal mRNA drug substance.

We all know that plasmid quality is foundational in dictating the quality of the final mRNA drug substance. In this clip homing in on upstream process considerations, speakers Stu Sundseth (Tune Therapeutics), Marc Wolfgang (Sail Biomedicines), and Christian Dohmen (Ethris) outline some of the most important CQAs for plasmids and the impact they can have on the resulting quality of the mRNA drug substance for linear mRNA. 

Advancing RNA Live panelists Tyler Goodwin and April Sena start off our latest discussion on technology innovations in mRNA production by surveying the current manufacturing process for plasmid production, highlighting where they’ve seen advancements and what biotechs need to consider to obtain plasmids of the appropriate quality for mRNA production.

There remain a lot of gaps in our understanding of plasmid quality, particularly for high-quality mRNA production (as opposed to viral vector production). In this segment of a recent Advancing RNA Live panel, speakers Adi Nair, Tyler Goodwin, and April Sena highlight their biggest questions around plasmid DNA quality, as well as the pros and cons of some of the analytical methods upon which we’re relying most heavily today to assess plasmid quality.

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